Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: We are on episode one 61.
Speaker: I am excited.
Speaker: It is going to be a special episode.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop.
Speaker: You're your host along with me, my co-captain, uh, Scott Larson and Scott.
Speaker: There's plenty going on.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: I know your favorite people in the world.
Speaker: Who are you going to be buying pinball from?
Speaker: Well, so Zach and Nicole, many have always helped me out and I just got some upgrades for some stuff.
Speaker: And the funny thing is I keep finding things that I need to add to my machines, such as even like toppers, armor, shaker motors.
Speaker: So if you need anything for your machines, Zach and Nicole have been able to help me out and we've really appreciated their service.
Speaker: and for their sponsorship of this podcast.
Speaker: And so reach out to them if you are looking for that pinball machine, new or used.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: So if you've been following Loserkid over the last week or so, you've noticed that I have received an interesting machine into my house.
Speaker: I've done a first impressions and an unboxing of a multimorphic P3 system.
Speaker: And I've been able to get more hands-on to the system, which I've been super excited about.
Speaker: And I want to bring Jerry on the owner and creator of multimorphic P three system to pick his brain on some of the stuff we're seeing kind of some of the questions that the community has asked before and just kind of do a deep dive with you.
Speaker: So I appreciate you coming on Jerry to do this with us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Happy to be here.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: I mean, first off, where did this even come from?
Speaker: Like, I know that like in the past we've had kind of like, there was a,
Speaker: you know, pin, pin 2000 with, with Williams and whatnot.
Speaker: And then I can't think of, has there really any been any other concept outside of maybe just virtual, virtual, nothing, nothing that integrates to this level.
Speaker: What was the company that originally owned alien?
Speaker: They tried to do a modular system as well, but it didn't really work out with highway.
Speaker: Was it highway?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: But other than that, like there just really hasn't been this concept of video integrated with pinball in this way.
Speaker: What, what, what made you wake up one day and be like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm making this and this is now my life dream.
Speaker: The day was when I walked into my game room slash guest bedroom plus additional guest bedroom plus additional guest bedroom and found 13 pinball machines hanging out in my house.
Speaker: I'm like, why did I spend all this money?
Speaker: Why did I take up all these rooms?
Speaker: Why did I do all these things to scratch and itch the love for pinball that we all have?
Speaker: Why did I fill up my house to do this?
Speaker: When I have a Nintendo Wii that has tons of games, I have a phone that has tons of apps, I have a computer that has tons of apps, why are these devices, these really cool, mechanically complex things,
Speaker: Why are they the same thing every time I turn them on?
Speaker: So it seemed to me like a pinball machine should be able to run a lot of different applications, a lot of different game rules, but also when you get into that kind of level of, of gameplay variety, why can't we change the mechanics too?
Speaker: And so, so that was the, the basis of the idea.
Speaker: Um, then it went through a whole, a whole slew of, um,
Speaker: Technology needs, right?
Speaker: Control systems and mechanical setup and all that stuff.
Speaker: And I'm sure we'll get into that.
Speaker: But yeah, it started out just me, me realizing I was addicted beyond the means.
Speaker: And I didn't want my house to be that way.
Speaker: You're like, I'm at 13 machines.
Speaker: How can I double this with keeping the space I have?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: You could have eight folded up in your garage like I do.
Speaker: Was it special when lit?
Speaker: Was that the documentary where they went to the guy's barn?
Speaker: Yeah, and he had so many of them.
Speaker: He kept building levels in there just out of plywood and stuff.
Speaker: You're like...
Speaker: that doesn't look safe.
Speaker: It looked like a house of cards.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That documentary, which definitely featured the, uh, the more eclectic aspects of the hobby and the personalities.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how long has, how long you've been doing multimorphic now?
Speaker: So we started as pinball controllers.com.
Speaker: Uh, that was a sole proprietorship that I started when I designed the P rock board.
Speaker: That was in 2009.
Speaker: 2012 is when a friend and I designed the first P3 prototype machine.
Speaker: We incorporated later that year after TPF that year.
Speaker: And we started shipping machines, P3 machines in 2017.
Speaker: So we've been shipping seven and a half, eight years.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And well, actually, you're probably going to follow up on that question.
Speaker: I think I'm going to turn.
Speaker: So go ahead, Josh.
Speaker: Oh, I was just going to say, so how long did it go from concept to actual games outdoor?
Speaker: I started building, well, a friend and I in my garage in Austin, Texas started building the prototype.
Speaker: It was, I guess, late 2011.
Speaker: First prototype was 2011, finished in 2012, took it to TPF.
Speaker: We iterated...
Speaker: made another prototype 2013, made a third prototype in 2013, a fourth prototype in 2015.
Speaker: And then we brought on a mechanical engineer.
Speaker: Or maybe it was a year before, we brought on a mechanical engineer and actually designed what could be a production machine, iterated through the details of that for a couple of years.
Speaker: And then we took pre-orders,
Speaker: throughout that process.
Speaker: Uh, 2013, I think we took our first pre-order with the expectations that we'd ship in a year.
Speaker: And four years later, we had our first production machine out the door.
Speaker: So that is a, getting a company off the ground is always challenging because you, you have a combination of startup costs.
Speaker: You have a combination of, um, there's going to be a while to break even.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: So how did you figure, so you are the owner of the company, is that correct?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, so how, how did you decide you want to take this plunge?
Speaker: I mean, that's a pretty, that's a big endeavor to say, Hey, I'm going to start a company and it's not just starting a pinball company there.
Speaker: You're starting a company that is pinball, but different.
Speaker: So lead me through that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So in 2009, when I created the PROC board,
Speaker: I also quit my day job to do not pinball stuff, to create a company.
Speaker: I feel like I have the entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker: I didn't want to keep doing what the company I worked for kept wanting me to do.
Speaker: I had my own ideas.
Speaker: I wanted to pursue different things.
Speaker: I started, I started, I founded a company.
Speaker: went and started researching, not researching, I just went and started asking VCs for support, pitched the thing to dozens, maybe a hundred different possible investors.
Speaker: And through the process, learned that the idea I had was beyond the means of a newbie startup founder to do.
Speaker: No one was going to invest in me to do the idea I had because it was too big for a
Speaker: for a no-name beginner guy who didn't have a lot of experienced support.
Speaker: But while doing that, I was creating the PROT control system.
Speaker: I created the driver boards, the switch boards, all the things necessary to create a pinball machine.
Speaker: When I decided not to pursue the company that I was pursuing, that's when the friend and I just started tinkering around with this concept machine.
Speaker: The machine wasn't intended to be a company.
Speaker: It wasn't supposed to turn into this or that wasn't the intention.
Speaker: We just designed a machine because we could.
Speaker: I'm an engineer of electronics and computer engineering, so I'm pretty good with engineering electronics and software.
Speaker: He was very good with the mechanical aspects and we put this machine together for fun.
Speaker: Took it to TPF.
Speaker: People seemed to like it.
Speaker: Showed it to a relative who was in town and an aunt and uncle.
Speaker: And they were like, this is really cool.
Speaker: You said people really enjoyed it.
Speaker: Do you think you could sell it?
Speaker: Maybe this was right around the time Jersey Jack had announced Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: They were basically the second manufacturer that, that existed at the time they were in the,
Speaker: the early development stages and this is a different idea maybe it's something we could pursue but it's going to take a lot of money to do it and they said well we'll help we'll give you and they named a number that was an eighth of what i thought i would need to get it done an eighth i had a i had a
Speaker: An acquaintance who was a business advisor, and I went and talked to him.
Speaker: I was like, they want to give me some money to get this thing started, but it's nowhere near enough.
Speaker: Should I?
Speaker: What's your advice?
Speaker: And he said, if someone's offering you money, you take it and you give it a shot.
Speaker: And it was the worst advice I've ever received in my professional career because...
Speaker: My estimates were accurate and building a pinball machine is complex enough.
Speaker: Homebrewers know how expensive it is to build a single machine.
Speaker: Building a company and an infrastructure, manufacturing infrastructure, getting all the tools and the equipment and the training stuff and all the prototype materials and paying for all the parts and all that stuff over the year.
Speaker: It's a significant expense beyond what most people realize.
Speaker: And it was, it was pretty dumb to do that in the early days without, without enough money.
Speaker: So basically I worked for, I worked for 10 years with no paycheck.
Speaker: Some of the other guys working with us made and still make pretty big sacrifices because it's a, it's a, it's a cool thing.
Speaker: It's a passion thing.
Speaker: It's, it's a neat product that we all love to create, to develop.
Speaker: Yeah, it was pretty stupid.
Speaker: I went into it kind of
Speaker: without awareness of the challenges and the expenses that it would, that it would incur.
Speaker: So I know that the P rock board, so when did the P rock board get introduced at all of this?
Speaker: Cause I know you started selling it to like, I think spooky picked it up.
Speaker: American was using it.
Speaker: I'm trying to think there were, there was a handful of Dutch was using it.
Speaker: So was that helping some of the offset, some of the costs?
Speaker: Like how, how was that playing into things?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So the P rock,
Speaker: Came out with the P-Rock in 2009.
Speaker: It was 2011 when Dutch Pinball picked it up.
Speaker: They built Bride of Pinball 2, which then they built the company around that, turned it into Big Lebowski.
Speaker: Some other people picked it up.
Speaker: Scott Denisey designed TNA with it after a different project with it.
Speaker: And Josh Kugler developed two machines, two homebrew machines.
Speaker: Keith Elwin developed Archer.
Speaker: These are people that started as homebrewers and went and got involved with companies.
Speaker: And most of those companies, because of the influence of those guys, adopted our control system as the control system for the machine.
Speaker: So Josh was our end to American Pinball.
Speaker: American Pinball basically started with Josh and the idea of the Houdini machine from way back.
Speaker: But Josh is like, yeah, I know the P-Rock, so let's get the P-Rock.
Speaker: Scott Denisi, P-Rock.
Speaker: who became a very good friend back in those early days.
Speaker: He told Charlie, who at the time needed a control system solution after a couple of their first games, they switched to P-Rock.
Speaker: Dutch pinball always was P-Rock.
Speaker: And yes, that brought in a good chunk of revenue that helped us pay for all those expenses I mentioned while we weren't bringing in revenue, while we weren't selling the machine yet.
Speaker: you still incur the costs.
Speaker: You still have to move forward and develop stuff and order parts and try things out.
Speaker: So yeah, that was a huge help.
Speaker: So one challenge that people have, and we see this with different iterations of games where they'll have, you know, you go through the, you know, the EM and then you go to the solid state and then you go to, you know, the system games, then you get to the DMD.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: Each system has an elevation and iteration that needs to constantly be upgraded.
Speaker: And it's easy when you're developing a one-off.
Speaker: Because if you're developing a system, then it's like, well, we'll do the next 10 games with this type of system.
Speaker: And then you can upgrade it.
Speaker: The one challenge I've always had with the P3 is...
Speaker: How are you able to plan for that for all of your development and to keep the system current while you're also saying, well, if we upgrade it, we also have to worry about backwards compatibility because you have all these modules that still have to function.
Speaker: And so can you walk me through that?
Speaker: Because that's always been a confusing part for me and the P3.
Speaker: So there's a couple things to unravel there, but there's the computer system, there's the control system, which is more interfacing to switches and drivers and things, and then there's the mechanical structure.
Speaker: The computer system of the first P3 prototype is more advanced than the most advanced
Speaker: pinball machine's computer system today other than the P3.
Speaker: Because we're driving a big LCD, we use an off-the-shelf Intel motherboard with a NVIDIA graphics card and substantial memory and a solid-state hard drive.
Speaker: Basically, we took a desktop computer because we're doing the things in the pinball machine that a desktop computer does and we put it in the pinball machine.
Speaker: So our
Speaker: computer system today, which has evolved because of availability.
Speaker: We can't buy the motherboards we first put in anymore.
Speaker: We can't buy the CPUs.
Speaker: So we've updated all of the technical components over the years, but it's still a computer and it still runs software.
Speaker: They're all running a version of Linux.
Speaker: The Linux kernel for the technical people has been updated throughout the process.
Speaker: The technology though is really the same and there's really no
Speaker: No limit to where that can go.
Speaker: Computers are going to continue getting faster.
Speaker: All the motherboard makers and the CPU makers are going to continue making new versions and end-of-lifing the old versions, and we'll just continue evolving there.
Speaker: There's the control system, the PROC board.
Speaker: We originally designed the PROC board as a plug-in for existing machines, WPC machines and CERN machines, so people could drop it in and write new rules for it.
Speaker: The board in the P3 is slightly different.
Speaker: It's a modified version of that that we call the P3 ROC.
Speaker: It's got a programmable chip on it, and it interfaces to a modular set of driver and switchboards.
Speaker: The PROC system in the P3, we developed it in 2012.
Speaker: It's three years after the original PROC.
Speaker: It is the most advanced control system still in pinball.
Speaker: The latest control
Speaker: control systems from all the other manufacturers, your Stern node board setup, your spike two, people are predicting spike three.
Speaker: Who knows what that's going to look like.
Speaker: All of the control systems from all the other manufacturers are slower and have fewer features than the P3 rock board that I designed in 2012.
Speaker: So there's, there's,
Speaker: There's an assumption that because our technology is similar to what it was 10 years ago, a little more than 10 years ago, that it's outdated, but that's entirely not true.
Speaker: It's actually still the most advanced in the industry.
Speaker: For the mechanical structure, yeah, that evolves over time as we come up with new features, but we're still using traditional switches, targets, rubber rings, drop targets.
Speaker: We purchase all those
Speaker: As many things as possible, we purchase those from existing pinball parts suppliers because we don't want to have to reinvent everything.
Speaker: And those things haven't changed in 30, 40, 50 years.
Speaker: So there's an assumption because we have a technological machine that it needs to keep moving forward.
Speaker: But relative to what?
Speaker: Because relative to pinball, it's by far the most advanced system that existed 12 years ago, and it still is today.
Speaker: we've created a number of upgrades over the course of the years.
Speaker: We started with a back box that had a translate in it.
Speaker: It just had a flat translate that you could change out when you swapped your game.
Speaker: You would change the image in the back box, and that's it.
Speaker: And we came out with an LCD, so we replaced the translate with an LCD.
Speaker: We offered that as an upgrade kit to everyone who had already
Speaker: owned a P3 with the Translite.
Speaker: The machine behind Josh there shows a very cool backlit speaker panel with Princess Bride artwork.
Speaker: The early versions of the P3 didn't.
Speaker: They were a flat, black, solid speaker panel with a P3 logo in it.
Speaker: And I decided one day that in a lineup of modern machines, it didn't look as
Speaker: as eye-catching as some of the other machines out there.
Speaker: So we added this artwork piece and we recently released an upgrade kit for all P3 owners, including the very first one who bought a machine years ago.
Speaker: And we allow them, we help them, we have instructions to swap out their back box components to be able to show all these new features.
Speaker: The speakers now have RGB LEDs in them.
Speaker: All P3 owners who get this back box upgrade can enjoy those.
Speaker: There's things inside the game.
Speaker: The wall and scoop assembly used to be a coil-driven thing.
Speaker: Now it's a motor-driven thing.
Speaker: Functionally, it's the same way.
Speaker: Functionally, it works the same way, right?
Speaker: The scoop or the wall pops up, and that's all it really needs to do.
Speaker: If we need to add more logic or more interesting functionality to that, we'll make it available as an upgrade to existing owners.
Speaker: I can't promise we'll always make everything available to all previous owners at some point
Speaker: That doesn't work.
Speaker: But there's really no other product in any other industry that lets you avoid buying the new model of it and keep updating the old model.
Speaker: You buy a car or whatever or a computer and you're choosing the new technology over your old technology.
Speaker: Whatever features are in cars these days, you can't really retrofit them into old ones.
Speaker: So I feel pretty good that we've supported our customers over the years.
Speaker: We've given them all the upgrades we've added to the new machines and we support them like no other.
Speaker: And this is a question, this is an interesting question because you can't ask this to any other manufacturer.
Speaker: It's irrelevant.
Speaker: They, as you said, come out with a new single themed machine that totally replaces or gets added to a lineup of older machines.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I want to shift back to one of the things we were talking about earlier, just for a second.
Speaker: We were talking about the P-Rock and how that was making a good chunk of the income for multi-morphic those in those early days.
Speaker: But as time has moved on, a lot of these companies like Spooky and American and whatnot have come out with their own proprietary boards.
Speaker: Has it affected the bottom line of Multimorphic?
Speaker: Or is it one of those things that Multimorphic's profitable enough that it was great getting you guys off the ground, but right now you guys are like a bicycle, you're up on your wheels, and so it doesn't really matter anymore?
Speaker: I'm not asking for specific numbers, just trying to kind of get an idea of where it
Speaker: you guys land on this yeah the the last thing you said is is the most accurate so the the p rock sales to existing manufacturers supplemented our ability to build the prototypes to get off the ground to get to production um it took a couple years in production before we ramped up our volume enough to where the incoming revenue um
Speaker: which of course it needs to offset the costs of building the thing.
Speaker: You need a profit in order to be able to support the future development costs.
Speaker: It took a couple of years before we got close to what I would say was cashflow positive.
Speaker: Cashflow positive meaning
Speaker: enough money is coming in to offset the money we're spending.
Speaker: Discounts, the past money spent, debt, and all those things.
Speaker: Cash flow positive comes before profitability.
Speaker: When the P-Rock sales to certain companies started falling off, it was kind of pretty well-timed with
Speaker: Weird Al coming out, Heist and Weird Al coming out.
Speaker: Heist came out in 2020, right when COVID hit, actually.
Speaker: And Weird Al was two years later.
Speaker: And those machines kind of took us from slight growth to significant growth.
Speaker: And that brought in enough revenue to more than make up for the lost revenue from a couple of manufacturers developing their own systems and designing out the P-ROG.
Speaker: Okay, so you did pull out the cash flow positive.
Speaker: Are you in the profitability stage?
Speaker: So every game is different.
Speaker: We've had good games that are great sellers for us, and we've had other games that haven't sold as much.
Speaker: We're in an okay place right now.
Speaker: We're making enough money with each game sale to justify continuing to build the next one and hopefully more than one after it.
Speaker: So it's a tough business, though.
Speaker: There's no illusion about it.
Speaker: Every single manufacturer is probably one or two duds from a big problem.
Speaker: And the industry is soft right now as well.
Speaker: So we're all kind of trying to maneuver through this difficult industry.
Speaker: And there are so many companies right now, we're all kind of competing for a lot of the same dollars.
Speaker: It's a tough business, but yes, we are justifying the time and effort and money we're putting into it based on how many sales we're getting, which is all we could really ask for.
Speaker: Can we ask roughly how many is going out the door?
Speaker: We don't need solid numbers.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a weird question with the P3.
Speaker: It's a weird question, right?
Speaker: Because every other manufacturer, it's not a weird question, but it's a different comparison because every other manufacturer comes out with a new game and they have to sell some number of that new machine, 700 of these, or someone needs to sell all 2,000 of their run in order to
Speaker: justify their business.
Speaker: We come out with a new game for the P3 and it's possible it moves zero P3 cabinets.
Speaker: Maybe it only sells to existing P3 owners.
Speaker: Or on the flip side, maybe it's a theme that appeals to a ton of people that aren't yet in the pinball community or aren't people that own P3s and it sells mostly new machines.
Speaker: So every game is different.
Speaker: I'm not going to answer your question directly.
Speaker: It's kind of
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Delicate information.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker: But every P3 customer that we have might never buy a P3 again.
Speaker: They already have it.
Speaker: So they're customers for future game kits, and that's enough.
Speaker: If we only sell game kits moving forward, if we never move another machine, our business can be justified because we have enough of those customers who might buy machines.
Speaker: Interestingly, though, over the last year or so,
Speaker: We've had a lot of people add a second P3 to their lineup, which is really cool because now that we have eight play field modules, I mean, a lot of them are like, I really want their favorite Princess Bride.
Speaker: I really want Weird Al in a machine all the time.
Speaker: I'm looking behind you, Scott, and I see your lineup of games, right?
Speaker: Some people just want a game that they can turn it on and play that instantly.
Speaker: And maybe they use the other cabinet for swapping games.
Speaker: So we were justified if nobody buys another new P3,
Speaker: If people buy more P3s, then obviously it's better for us too.
Speaker: Well, there are people like, I have three Switches.
Speaker: My kids lost one of them, but I have three of them.
Speaker: One of them's in the ether somewhere.
Speaker: So that does make sense.
Speaker: Which game has been your biggest seller?
Speaker: So Weird Al sold the most cabinets.
Speaker: Ever since then, every successive release has sold more game kits than the last.
Speaker: which makes sense because every game kit brings on some number of new machine buyers and the customer base continues to grow.
Speaker: So it's a difficult question to give you a clear answer.
Speaker: Weird Al made us the most money, if that's what you're asking.
Speaker: Well, I guess it's just more of like, let's just assume that I'm interested in X game module.
Speaker: Which one has the most out there?
Speaker: Is it weird?
Speaker: Game module?
Speaker: Uh, no.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's princess bride.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I think that speaks to, cause you're saying that.
Speaker: So like where'd I'll sell the most cabinets, but each game was successfully had sold more than the previous one.
Speaker: So that's cool because like with Scott Denise's final resistance, that means that like even, uh,
Speaker: an original theme in pinball, which usually don't do very great, has was successful on a certain level with you guys, which translates very well, in my opinion, that's very cool for something like that.
Speaker: Because everyone who has a P3 bought it, knowing that the value of ownership increases every time they add a game kit to it.
Speaker: So everyone's always looking at our next title thinking they're going to get it.
Speaker: So we really have to turn somebody off to,
Speaker: for them not to buy the next game.
Speaker: And, and obviously we're amazing at our jobs and create really cool stuff.
Speaker: So we, we don't generally turn people off.
Speaker: Well, and, and not like you're tooting your own horn.
Speaker: I think you should, because one thing I'm being facetious of course, I'm actually not, not tooting.
Speaker: We get a lot of criticism and a lot of hate in the world.
Speaker: And, and, and, but we, we also have a great customer base that loves the machine and loves what we do.
Speaker: And that that's why we build these games.
Speaker: Well, and one thing that I've always been a big advocate of is software and code, and it has to fill right.
Speaker: And, you know, this is one thing I kind of point out in the first impressions video, but you can tell this is coded by someone that knows pinball, that knows what risk reward does and how to make, you know,
Speaker: with Princess Bride, for example, you know, as you wish, you even get to decide if you want to bring that multi ball in and there's a risk to bringing that multi ball in.
Speaker: Same with like some multi balls aren't allowed during certain modes.
Speaker: It just, it's, the thing is, is, is other competitors will sometimes give you all the fixings on the plate.
Speaker: And, and some of the best designers have learned.
Speaker: It's not everything that you give a person, it's how you give it to them.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: and be able to know that fine balance, right?
Speaker: And I can tell with Colin McAlpine working on the rules and stuff with this, he's very much done that.
Speaker: And honestly, code wise, I'm enjoying both these and Weird Al and Princess Bride are really, really coded very, very well.
Speaker: And I just have to tip my hat to you on that because I think that's one thing too, is people can complain like, well, if I get a game in my house,
Speaker: And you get the honeymoon phase, right?
Speaker: And you love it and everything.
Speaker: But if the code's not really there, then six months to a year down the road, it becomes this like, do I really want to keep it in my house?
Speaker: It's not what I was expecting.
Speaker: Do I want to see where the direction goes?
Speaker: But it seems like you guys have got it figured out with how to code these because I'm not getting bored with the gameplay.
Speaker: Granted, I've had it for a week.
Speaker: So I guess we could ask in six months.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Overall, I guess worst case scenario, if I get bored with that, I just pull out the module and put another module in.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: It stays fresh over time, and you're not likely to burn yourself out on one thing if you have multiple game kits.
Speaker: But thank you for that.
Speaker: Weird Al.
Speaker: Weird Al, we were mostly through the development before we brought Colin and Bo and Karen's on board at the same time, right at the end of the Weird Al development.
Speaker: So that complement extends beyond...
Speaker: beyond our rules experts to the full development team.
Speaker: We sit in meetings and design these rule sets as a team for months and months and months.
Speaker: For Final Resistance, which was we brought Bowen on for the rules of that game.
Speaker: It wasn't just Bowen off in a room creating rules.
Speaker: It was Bowen proposing a lot of ideas, but also everyone else proposing a bunch of ideas and Bowen kind of sifting through some of the ideas and presenting
Speaker: cohesive package and then us all reviewing it and we don't like this but we love this and let's try to change this and that mode is a little too similar to one we put in the last game let's change it it's it's a group effort but you're right that people like colin and bowen and people with a lot of rules experience because they know they're encyclopedic about their rules knowledge they know what
Speaker: is interesting for both beginners and for expert level players.
Speaker: So one question I do have, and I I've talked to Josh a little offline.
Speaker: So right now the game is at Josh's place, which is three hours away.
Speaker: So I'm planning on making a journey out there so I can experience it too.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: One question I think I have, and many people have when you're removing the module,
Speaker: and you're putting a different one in, here's my concern.
Speaker: And I've talked offline with Josh on this a little bit.
Speaker: So first off, when you have people who get into pinball, you have the people who only know how to turn it on, right?
Speaker: And then you get to the next level, the people who have actually pulled off the glass.
Speaker: And then you get to the next level of people who can, okay, I can maintain the top part of the game, maybe like do some stuff.
Speaker: Then you get to the next level of people who can get under the cabinet.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It seems like replacing a module is kind of at that level.
Speaker: Someone who's at least familiar or comfortable enough with taking the glass off, taking a module out, putting another module in.
Speaker: And I'm wondering how you overcome that because there's a lot of people who,
Speaker: in pinball who are not to that level of being able to to set to be you know mechanically savvy enough to remove and insert a new module into a game and i bet that's a big barrier to entry for your for your module for your game um i guess your business model it certainly can be now i mean a lot of people bought weird al
Speaker: Because they were Weird Al fans and wanted one machine.
Speaker: And then they learned through watching my emails or getting involved in the community that, oh, this is a multi-game system and I can enjoy more things on this machine.
Speaker: Therefore, I'm now a pinhead and I want to learn how to do these kind of things.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: I mean, some people, I guess I'm thinking about support.
Speaker: when people call us for help, some people call us to your point with, I don't know, I need to adjust to this thing.
Speaker: I shoot the ball around the orbit and it comes out and it goes straight down the middle or whatever.
Speaker: We're like, okay, this is a beginner.
Speaker: They don't know that they can pull the glass and they can just kind of maneuver that rail to give themselves the better path.
Speaker: So we talk them through that.
Speaker: And we get other people who are like,
Speaker: having an issue with a drop target.
Speaker: I've tested the coil.
Speaker: It measures such and such ohms, and I've traced it all the way back to the driver board, and those people know what they're doing.
Speaker: We have customers that span the entire range of experience, and we have a great support staff that helps them.
Speaker: It hasn't really seemed like a barrier to entry, possibly because
Speaker: Most people don't really think about the complexity of it when they buy the machine.
Speaker: When you buy a Nintendo, you just, right, you get it.
Speaker: You get a cartridge, you slide it in.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: So a multi-game pinball thing, it must be whatever.
Speaker: When we send a machine out to somebody, we send an email, give them expectations about the process, but also say, this machine is different from a traditional pinball machine.
Speaker: has a different way to control it.
Speaker: We have a different menu system than others.
Speaker: It's also a multi-game system.
Speaker: And here is a link to a full resource, a full web page with resources for helping you understand what you're doing.
Speaker: You might be able to get away with just reading the usage and maintenance sections, or if you need to get into troubleshooting, there's guides there too.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't really know what to say other than everybody's different.
Speaker: And we as a company have to have the support and information for the full range of experiences.
Speaker: And we seem to do a pretty good job because...
Speaker: Unless someone just gives up on a tough thing or gets frustrated and sells the machine, we've been able to walk every single customer through any fix necessary for their machine.
Speaker: With one exception or one type of exception, which is where it doesn't make sense for them to go any deeper.
Speaker: And we're just like, well, send us the flipper assembly back or send us the game module back and we'll just address it here.
Speaker: Because it'll take us two weeks to walk you through the details of debugging something.
Speaker: Well, and I didn't even know this, but so I've been trying to go from the perspective of if I was a first time buyer getting this in my house, not, and I, I do apologize.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I got to the part where it said this is more, or this is different from traditional pinball.
Speaker: The first thing went off in my head was like, well, duh.
Speaker: Like, so I didn't read that part.
Speaker: I know, I know what I'm getting into, but I should have read that part.
Speaker: But yeah, you on multimorphia.
Speaker: So Josh, the person who, who said on the video that we sent out this really great introductory email is,
Speaker: We learned later on in his video that he didn't even read half of it.
Speaker: I read most of it.
Speaker: Well done, Josh.
Speaker: Well, I got to the part where it said, this is different than any other system.
Speaker: Like obvious, like, okay.
Speaker: So you're a stereotypical dude right now.
Speaker: You're like, I don't need to read the instructions.
Speaker: I got this.
Speaker: It gets better.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I went to go switch out.
Speaker: Cause I wanted to get the experience kind of like, you know, as the, as the common customer, I guess.
Speaker: And so we went to go switch out Weird Al and switch out Princess Bride into Weird Al.
Speaker: I was telling Jerry this today, and I was like, I got frustrated because I didn't know what to do because I looked at the instructions, skimmed and went, yeah, I think I can figure this out.
Speaker: Stuck it down.
Speaker: I went to go switch it out.
Speaker: And why am I having such a hard time doing this?
Speaker: And I realized, oh, it says right here in the instructions, take all the balls out before you try to put the next module in.
Speaker: Oh, I should probably try to do that.
Speaker: But you guys have done, like, it's a big piece of cardboard.
Speaker: As soon as you open the module, it's like, here are the instructions.
Speaker: Like, you guys have done that in a way.
Speaker: And not only that, so I released the video for the unboxing and the first impressions.
Speaker: And all of a sudden I got bombarded.
Speaker: I didn't realize you have a small army back there either.
Speaker: I got people, are you joining the discord?
Speaker: You know, have you done this?
Speaker: Like there's so many people enthusiastic about this.
Speaker: There's a very positive community that's behind multimorphic and they are willing to help you through it as well.
Speaker: So that would be my, one of my recommendations is that I've learned is if you're concerned about usability, if you're a friendliness, you know,
Speaker: Don't worry too much because there's a whole community almost any hour of the day, it seems like, willing to help you out if you're having an issue.
Speaker: And I feel like there's some other traditional pinball companies don't have even that kind of support of a community behind them.
Speaker: So that's one thing I just wanted to point out to say kudos to you guys because…
Speaker: It is impressive.
Speaker: And it's funny because like from the outside looking in before we've been doing this experiment, I was always just like, oh, it's a bunch of fanboys.
Speaker: They're just excited for this product.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But when you're in, when you're in the ecosystem of P3 and you're nervous about the product, but you've got all these people willing to help you, it makes it feel more comfortable.
Speaker: It makes it, it's easier to, to, to work with.
Speaker: And it takes that anxiety level way down.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: And that's something that's grown over time based on feedback, right?
Speaker: We didn't always have that insert in the boxes.
Speaker: We used to just ship a play field out and people would get it.
Speaker: And some number of people would have issues with it.
Speaker: I installed it in my P3 and the launchers weren't aligned, but they didn't know the launchers weren't aligned.
Speaker: They just knew I put it in the P3 and it's not working.
Speaker: It's not launching balls.
Speaker: So we would, we would debug the issue with them.
Speaker: We would walk them through the steps to figure out what was going on and fix it.
Speaker: And then we're like,
Speaker: We've gotten enough support calls for this problem.
Speaker: How do we avoid or minimize the number of the same call?
Speaker: Let's create an instruction thing that you're forced to see as you open up the box.
Speaker: You see it.
Speaker: It's in the way.
Speaker: You have to set it aside in order to get the module out.
Speaker: Hopefully some percentage of people will read that and realize, oh, okay, if I put this module in, there may be a couple of, there's, so basically with,
Speaker: With any mechanical system, things have to be aligned properly.
Speaker: And you make a machine.
Speaker: And if you make one machine, things are aligned this way.
Speaker: And if you make another machine, they might be a millimeter off in the other direction because someone tightened a screw down while pushing this way or tightened a screw down while pushing this way.
Speaker: It's called tolerances.
Speaker: You might get a new play field, plug it in, and it doesn't quite line up to the position of your up kickers.
Speaker: Well, we provide very simple adjustments
Speaker: we call them adjustment screws for that.
Speaker: You go in the back of the play field, you turn a nut to tighten up the interface.
Speaker: It pushes the tubes forward and magically starts working.
Speaker: You may have to do it.
Speaker: You might not.
Speaker: It's a mechanical thing and they're all slightly different from each other.
Speaker: But we now include that instruction so that people aren't freaked out when they plug it in and it doesn't work.
Speaker: And that's an example.
Speaker: There's 40 different examples of things that we've
Speaker: improved over time to help people avoid the frustration that happens when they just don't understand how the thing works.
Speaker: And yes, it's traditional pinball.
Speaker: Yes, it's got driver boards and switchboards and FET circuits like any game has.
Speaker: It's got a CPU that runs the code.
Speaker: But the mechanical setup is a bit different, and it intimidates people.
Speaker: So we've worked hard to get there.
Speaker: I appreciate you recognizing that, Josh.
Speaker: Now, how do you, one of the challenges with the P3 is all the mechanical parts are mostly in the back third, right?
Speaker: And so you're dealing with swapping that out.
Speaker: However, how do you incorporate, I know most pinball machines have most of the shots generally in the back there, but there's an encroachment that comes down depending on the game and it surrounds it.
Speaker: I mean, you look at Godzilla, you look at those types of games where-
Speaker: Yeah, there are things that are closer at you.
Speaker: So how do you prevent the trap of every game feeling similar to the other one?
Speaker: Because most of the things are in the back play field.
Speaker: How can you bring the action closer to the flippers?
Speaker: So to the first statement, let me just contradict it a little bit.
Speaker: Because everything's in the back third field.
Speaker: everything seems like they're in the back third above the play field.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Below the play field, there are these huge mechanisms for the walls and scoops that pop up.
Speaker: And in front of that, there's the big LCD.
Speaker: Above those things in the lower portion, there's the hanging flipper assembly and side target assembly.
Speaker: So mechanically it's pretty rich throughout.
Speaker: It just presents a little bit differently than a traditional thing, machine.
Speaker: Before I answer your question directly, okay.
Speaker: The screen, the open area that people see when they look at a P3, that screen is the magic.
Speaker: That's the best part of the machine, in my opinion, of course, because that screen delivers so much more story immersion.
Speaker: It gives you the dynamic artwork, the dynamic reasoning for hitting a shot.
Speaker: Why am I shooting this orbit?
Speaker: I'm shooting this orbit because a blinking arrow is, an arrow is blinking,
Speaker: Or am I shooting this orbit because there's stuff in the scene that is pushing me in that direction and giving me a thematic reason to do that?
Speaker: We tell the story of the game through the LCD.
Speaker: And we also add virtual targets.
Speaker: There might be moving targets.
Speaker: There might be virtual rollover targets on the screen.
Speaker: We add a lot of interactivity to that empty area.
Speaker: So I say we've replaced the
Speaker: painted piece of wood that has a few pixels of LEDs on them with this fully immersive dynamic experience.
Speaker: We've, we took, instead of having 40 switches and a few LEDs on a play field, we have 2 million rollover RGB lit rollovers, which is, um, me joking, of course, but the LCD has a lot of pixels and everyone can be semi-interactive because we can put virtual targets there.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Now, the direct answer to your question that I avoided for a long time.
Speaker: The flipper assembly is a floating assembly.
Speaker: This is a thing that slides in the front of the machine.
Speaker: The flippers hang down from a piece of clear polycarbonate.
Speaker: It's got slingshots.
Speaker: It's got flippers.
Speaker: Above those are the side target assemblies that do the same thing.
Speaker: They hang down from the sides.
Speaker: If you actually...
Speaker: pull the play field frame into service position, open up, we have a hinged front door to the play field structure, and look down underneath the flipper assembly, the side target assembly, there's an air gap to the LCD and there's nothing in there.
Speaker: It's a complete air gap.
Speaker: And we do that because we have infrared light shining across the play field surface, which is how we track the position of the ball.
Speaker: But the point is we have hanging side targets, we have hanging flippers,
Speaker: Heist has a crane mechanism that starts in the back and extends out over the play field.
Speaker: You can't see me on the camera, but it extends over the play field.
Speaker: It presents a hanging, moving target that gives you things to shoot for lower in the play field.
Speaker: We so far, I think we've successfully created...
Speaker: eight fully different gaming experiences in what most people call the back third of the play field.
Speaker: I don't think many people are going to say Princess Bride feels like Weird Al, feels like Lexi Lightspeed, feels like drained or third party developed drained or any of those things.
Speaker: However, if the theme ever calls for something lower in the play field,
Speaker: We're not going to do it just to tick a box off of a checklist.
Speaker: We're going to do it because the theme speaks to us and says, this is the time you need to hang some more things.
Speaker: We need, I don't know, an upwards drop target or something, or we need a scoop to catch the ball or whatever it is.
Speaker: We can do it.
Speaker: We can hang it over the play field surface.
Speaker: We have to engineer it a little differently than the traditional mechanism.
Speaker: Um, but it won't be long before you start to see mechanical things in the, in the, in the middle area of our play fields because, um, some things want it.
Speaker: So I've got a couple of questions now that I've had this in my house for a week now.
Speaker: One thing that I have noticed at like expo and TPF and stuff like that, um, is the upper play field does have a sticker versus the traditional printed on wood.
Speaker: Um, what is the long-term viability of the sticker and have you had any issues with it peeling or anything like that?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we started, um,
Speaker: First Playfield Lexi Lightspeed started shipping in 2017.
Speaker: We put on a sticker is the informal word for a vinyl decal with a laminate on top of it.
Speaker: So it's printed artwork on a sticker.
Speaker: And it has a protective layer called a laminate, a protective layer of clear plastic on top of it.
Speaker: just a weak thing that the ball is gonna destroy as soon as it rolls over it.
Speaker: However, it's not a clear code and it's not as durable and thick as a clear code.
Speaker: And people that put, well, we kept that same process through Weird Al, I think.
Speaker: And people that put Weird Al on location and got 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 plays in the course of a year, they started to see the ball wearing through certain spots where there was a scoop.
Speaker: So the good news is for those people, it's not clear-coded.
Speaker: So when they tear down the play field to clean it, like most good pinball collectors do, they
Speaker: We can send them a new decal and they can replace it and they can have basically a fresh play field after reinstalling everything.
Speaker: That's a good thing.
Speaker: But after Weird Al, based on that experience, we upgraded to a 10 mil, 10 thousandths of an inch, 10 mil thick laminate, which we've put million cycle tests through them and not seen a lick of wear.
Speaker: We have vertical upkick tests that bring the ball up and just drop it onto the playfield surface, and they're not wearing at all.
Speaker: So again, over time, we've learned from earlier decisions.
Speaker: Our current playfields, Princess Bride, previous playfield, I think we did on Final Resistance, have the 10 mil laminate, which are fully
Speaker: I mean, they'll wear eventually.
Speaker: Clear coat will wear eventually.
Speaker: They dimple and do other things and will wear eventually.
Speaker: But they're pretty solid.
Speaker: We don't expect to get any feedback of worn playfields with the Princess Bride.
Speaker: Do they peel?
Speaker: They peel if they're assembled poorly, meaning if the playfield surface wasn't properly cleaned,
Speaker: cleaned, it had dust on it or some kind of debris on it when you apply the decal.
Speaker: Or if the decal isn't properly pressed to the play field, it might not be adhering properly and you could see some peel.
Speaker: But when that happens, we made a mistake and we get the play field back and we do it right the second time and send it back to a customer.
Speaker: It's pretty rare that that's happened.
Speaker: It actually happened very
Speaker: seldomly on original play fields.
Speaker: The new material, the thicker material actually requires an enhanced process to get it on there solidly.
Speaker: But like everything else, it's part of the process.
Speaker: You look at clear coated play fields and you'll see a ton of drama out in the industry about the quality of the clear coat and the pulling and the chipping and all the other things.
Speaker: We don't have that problem because if something happens with your decal, like I said, you just, we can unassemble your play field, put a new one on there and you're good to go.
Speaker: And honestly, that only takes a few hours.
Speaker: Well, and you know, I just, it just dawned on me while you're saying this, you know, one of the other things too is a traditional pinball.
Speaker: If that does happen and the person doesn't feel confident in fixating it and they don't want to like, and it's in a place that you can't just stick a washer over it.
Speaker: You know, you don't want someone to send you just a blank play field and say, go for it.
Speaker: I mean, absolute worst case scenario with your stuff.
Speaker: I can pull out a module in five minutes if that.
Speaker: stick it in a box and ship it to you guys and let you take care of it.
Speaker: And, and I'm not gonna, it's funny.
Speaker: Cause it's like, well, and then best, like, even then it's like, well, I have another module.
Speaker: I'll just stick it in the game.
Speaker: We'll play that while, while princess bride is off to multiple more multimorphic, I guess I'd never thought of that.
Speaker: And so just dawned on me right now.
Speaker: That's actually, it's actually kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah, we do that.
Speaker: We we've, we've done that a few times as someone has a strange mechanical issue that we simply,
Speaker: We can't walk them through.
Speaker: We can't get enough information over the phone or a video call to help them debug it, and we just ask them to ship it back.
Speaker: Stick it in the box, we'll send you a label and get it back here.
Speaker: Flipper assembly.
Speaker: The flipper assembly just slides out of the machine.
Speaker: Someone recently had a very strange problem we've never seen before, and we weren't sure if it was a power problem in their machine, in the wall, in their room, in their location.
Speaker: whatever, we actually sent them a new, a new everything.
Speaker: We sent them new cable harnesses, new flipper assembly, new power supply, new everything.
Speaker: We're like, I don't know what it is, but we're sending you everything.
Speaker: He's on location, by the way.
Speaker: So we're sending you everything.
Speaker: So you don't have to take your machine down for, for three weeks and send everything to us.
Speaker: We're sending you everything, swap in the components until the problem goes away and then send us back whatever the source of the problem was.
Speaker: And then we can debug it ourselves.
Speaker: He did that.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: You mean, Josh, it's not the same as like sending you a play field and saying you have to repopulate it?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly what I'm saying.
Speaker: Can you imagine?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But to Scott's point earlier, I mean, if that's what you're telling your new to pinball customer, I mean, it's like... Good luck.
Speaker: You might as well send a technician out to do it for me because... Yeah.
Speaker: But with us, yeah, just stick it in the box, send it to us.
Speaker: We'll take care of it.
Speaker: We'll send it back.
Speaker: You just plop it back in and you're good to go.
Speaker: Have you ever had a problem with the LCD screen considering there's a steel ball that's ricocheting off everything inside there?
Speaker: Any damage to that?
Speaker: No, because we didn't have, we knew we couldn't have a ball smashing around an LCD.
Speaker: There's actually a quarter inch thick piece of polycarbonate above the playfield LCD.
Speaker: So the ball is rolling on.
Speaker: Polycarbonate, by the way, is
Speaker: is one of the major ingredients in bulletproof glass.
Speaker: Um, it's, it's very durable.
Speaker: It's a, it's a very durable plastic.
Speaker: It's kind of scratch resistant.
Speaker: It doesn't shatter or crack.
Speaker: It will crack stress fractures and things, but, um, it's super durable and it's easy to clean with plastic polish.
Speaker: So, um, it's also super easy to remove from the machine.
Speaker: So when you fold down that front door, I told you about the flipper assembly can slide out, but also the play field surface, the,
Speaker: rectangular piece of polycarb that the ball rolls on, you can literally just slide it out the front of the machine.
Speaker: So if it gets scratched or overly dirty and you can't clean it off with, with some simple plastic polish, you just, you just swap it and put a new one in there.
Speaker: It takes 10 seconds.
Speaker: So, so one of my gripes, and I know that I've already talked to you about this, but I want to know the T the, the MDF, why do you guys do MDF instead of actually just routing out some, some channels and putting some T molding in for your corners and stuff?
Speaker: So we don't use MDF for edges or corners.
Speaker: What we do, so the cabinet sides are half-inch plywood.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Nice, good Baltic birch plywood.
Speaker: Traditional machines are three-quarter inch.
Speaker: We use half-inch plywood, and then we use a quarter-inch piece of trim that we send around the outside edges of the
Speaker: side and that frames the artwork.
Speaker: So that quarter inch piece of trim is an MDF material.
Speaker: It's just about two inches worth of material that goes all the way around the outside of the side of the cabin.
Speaker: It's just a, you know, it's a cost slash easy to work with kind of trade-off.
Speaker: And I know on the body, it's not a big deal because it's kind of protected by the plywood and it's protected by the metal of the trim and stuff like that.
Speaker: But on the head, that's like what your corners are up on the very top corner.
Speaker: I see what you're saying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was only my, because like a traditional pinball machine, a newer one has, you know, T molding around the edges and stuff like that.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I thought you were talking about the lower cabinet, but on the back boxes, that was fine on the lower cabinet.
Speaker: I don't even notice on the lower cabinet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: In our history of eight years of shipping these machines, you're the first person ever to comment on the material in the back box.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You're also the only person, the first person who got this $15,000 machine set up with two games on it and ran it into their wall as soon as the unboxed it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, you know me.
Speaker: I was testing durability.
Speaker: Strong work there, Josh.
Speaker: Just so you know, that was Josh who damaged that.
Speaker: It was not Scott.
Speaker: Actually, speaking of that, when you have these game modules, two things that I would be afraid of by owning the game.
Speaker: One, what happens if I'm taking a game module out and I drop it?
Speaker: So that that's one thing too.
Speaker: How do you store these?
Speaker: Uh, because if you have, I, I would say, yes, you have the box that it was shipped out in, but I would say, you know, if you have like, you know, a, we, or a switch or something like that, there's, there's like a cartridge, uh,
Speaker: cover that you put it in.
Speaker: So is there anything available like that to like, Hey, I'm going to take this out and I'm going to store it in a nice looking box or do I have a cardboard box underneath my game?
Speaker: So first question was what happens if you drop it?
Speaker: Don't drop it.
Speaker: It is a three to $4,000 thing you're picking up.
Speaker: So you're probably likely to be pretty careful with it.
Speaker: But of course, if it, if it, we, we,
Speaker: So a little inside story.
Speaker: We built the first prototype of one of our games.
Speaker: We got it ready for our photo shoot, our video shoot, so we could build the trailer.
Speaker: And it fell off a table and landed upside down on the floor the day before the video shoot.
Speaker: And this is our only copy of
Speaker: the play field.
Speaker: So it was a mad rush to replace the cracked plastics and, and to get it looking presentable again for the video shoot.
Speaker: Anyway, it's yeah, there's, there's stuff on, there's lots of stuff.
Speaker: The reason it's $3,700 or $3,500 is because there's a huge number of mechs and plastics and metal rails and everything else.
Speaker: And they can get bent or dinged or broken.
Speaker: If you, if you mishandle them, it is safe to set the play fields on their side or on their back.
Speaker: It's obviously better to put it in the protective casing or the foams that we include in the boxes.
Speaker: The boxes are reasonable storage places, storage containers for play fields.
Speaker: They're sized to fit right under the machine.
Speaker: So most people with a lot of modules will store a couple under their machine and then put others in the closets or
Speaker: hide them away where they're not in the way.
Speaker: We don't currently offer a pretty cabinet kind of storage setup.
Speaker: People have shared plans for building a pullable cart that you can slide under the machine that can have a couple of play fields in it.
Speaker: We've tinkered around with those ideas.
Speaker: There's a third party, aep3shop.com, who sells a
Speaker: cabinet quality, really pretty storage, stackable storage container for P3 modules.
Speaker: We may start selling something like that someday.
Speaker: There seems to be a pretty good level of interest in pretty cabinet quality storage for these things.
Speaker: And yeah, we don't offer anything yet.
Speaker: People mostly use their shipping boxes, but it's something that we would like to
Speaker: to make prettier something.
Speaker: Just give them a sticker, a decal sticker, and they're just going to wrap around the box so it looks pretty underneath the game.
Speaker: That's funny because one of our customers did exactly that.
Speaker: They sent us pictures.
Speaker: They're like, I bought a decal and I wrapped my box with it.
Speaker: Now it looks like a cool crate instead of a cardboard box.
Speaker: Hey, I'm just helping you out here.
Speaker: That's a cool idea.
Speaker: Well, there is that deep root company that went out of business.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: You can go buy some pin pods from them.
Speaker: Pin pods for your play fields.
Speaker: And the thing is, everything is a cost trade-off, right?
Speaker: We want our play fields to be very inexpensive, to not be perceived as an expensive purchase that defeats the purpose of owning a multi-game system.
Speaker: So you add a lot of expense to the shipping.
Speaker: Do you want your money in the play field features or in the shipping box?
Speaker: That's true, too.
Speaker: Well, it could be.
Speaker: Seriously, like these toppers that I'm buying and putting on machines, they're selling their...
Speaker: They're not cheap.
Speaker: And so I guarantee in the pinball community, if you offer it as an additional option, it's not required.
Speaker: but I guarantee you're going to have people who want to buy it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a cool idea.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you talked about when you first came on the scene, you know, you've had multiple homebrews between Scott, Nisi, Keith, Owen, all using the P rock whatnot.
Speaker: Time has changed.
Speaker: It's been over a decade now since P rocks come on the scene and there's been other companies that have come out with their own, uh, you know, pin board or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: do you think P-Rock's still the go-to?
Speaker: And what do you think of the current state of homebrew?
Speaker: So I'm actually a little out of touch with the state of homebrew.
Speaker: So at some point a few years ago, there, the fourth or fifth or sixth homebrew option came online.
Speaker: Somebody started selling another board that people could use to create homebrew machines.
Speaker: And to me at that point, it's, it's uninteresting.
Speaker: It's,
Speaker: It was cool in 2009, 2010.
Speaker: There were no homebrew options.
Speaker: There were plans for building a board from scratch that you could connect to pin meme and you could do some stuff, but there was no off the shelf board.
Speaker: We created that board and we fostered the growth of a homebrew community that now is thriving.
Speaker: It didn't exist when we started.
Speaker: We created online forums and
Speaker: set up booths at Expo and TPF with homebrew machines, with friends of ours who bought P-Rocks and started building machines.
Speaker: That was really a big step, I think, in the evolution of the pinball community and the pinball industry.
Speaker: Nowadays, it's kind of a commodity.
Speaker: And when I say it's uninteresting, I don't mean as an idea, as a product.
Speaker: It's uninteresting to me as an innovator.
Speaker: I like to create new things.
Speaker: things and then move on to the next new thing.
Speaker: And that's what I get to do every year or so by creating a really cool new game that has new features and new mechs and new levels of software integration.
Speaker: And that's more interesting to me at this point.
Speaker: Now, you are not in Chicago.
Speaker: Is that a
Speaker: plus or a minus or both plus or a minus it's it's a blessing or a curse yeah well okay i because now we know that jersey jack moved from jersey to chicago because there is a think take there you know there's a there's something about the community that there's a little um
Speaker: People change jobs.
Speaker: There's like a knowledge of how pinball works.
Speaker: And so there at least is a workforce that's familiar with pinball in Chicago that is not available elsewhere.
Speaker: And so, you know, all the supplies are there, all that kind of, all that.
Speaker: So being away from pinball, Mecca, does that help you or hurt you or a little of both?
Speaker: Probably a little of
Speaker: Both.
Speaker: I think the bigger deal than the talent pool, there's designers, but designers, you saw with other companies, designers will fly around and relocate to a new company because they get to work for a couple of years, wherever.
Speaker: The talent pool for assembly doesn't really exist for us in the sense that
Speaker: There's no special knowledge needed to put together a P3 or a P3 play field.
Speaker: We don't create our own wiring harnesses on a pegboard and follow intricate instructions or whatever.
Speaker: We outsource.
Speaker: Our engineering team defines the drawings for every component, and then we can send them all out and get them fabricated, bring them back in.
Speaker: And anybody who can read and use simple tools, a screwdriver or a wrench or whatever, can assemble our play fields.
Speaker: Um, so there's no special talent required for the manufacturing of our machines.
Speaker: The talent is in designing them.
Speaker: And we're not in Chicago.
Speaker: We're not near all the designers, but we, all the traditional designers, but we're also not building a traditional machine.
Speaker: And we're also living in the internet age where, um, so I was on a call today with a design team and one person's in, um,
Speaker: Connecticut, Michael Ocean is up there.
Speaker: Steven Silver's in Houston.
Speaker: I'm in obviously Round Rock, Texas.
Speaker: We've got people, Rory, one of our graphics guys is in California.
Speaker: We're all over the country.
Speaker: In fact, we've worked with people all over the world and that's not really a big deal.
Speaker: The biggest reason I think companies tend to want to be close to Chicago is because a lot of the parts suppliers
Speaker: A lot of the fabricators who create wire forms and targets and all of the things that grew from the heyday of pinball, grew out of the manufacturers all being in Chicago.
Speaker: We can buy the ones we need from Pinball Life and the rest of our machine is all customs.
Speaker: we don't do anything that any manufacturer who can bend metal couldn't do.
Speaker: So, um, we actually get a lot of our parts fabricated overseas.
Speaker: We bring them in, uh, we send them specs, we bring in the parts and then we put together the pinball machine.
Speaker: I don't think it would be an advantage to be in Chicago.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: it would be cool to be near the other companies have access to the exact same vendors and send out or, or to talk to someone about a wire form and say, you've built wire forms for 40 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, it's not a good thing.
Speaker: It's not a bad thing.
Speaker: It's just a thing.
Speaker: And, and we have a great team of people here and around the country who we can interact with.
Speaker: How many full time versus how many contract do you have?
Speaker: So we actually, all of our developers, not all of them, most of our developers are contract.
Speaker: I mean, we have 15, 15,
Speaker: We have audio people, video people, mechanical people, you name it.
Speaker: Software developers.
Speaker: We have a whole team of software developers, multiple games worth of team members because we're usually developing at least two games in parallel.
Speaker: Our full timers in Round Rock, Texas are mostly our assembly staff, our production team.
Speaker: And that ebb and flows.
Speaker: Right now we have seven people in the factory floor spitting out Princess Bride play fields and refilling the stock of P3 machines.
Speaker: We had 15 people on the floor in the peak of Weird Al machine production.
Speaker: So ebbs and flows, but we've got a ton of developers.
Speaker: How many hours does it take to take the initial, like the P-Rock system from start to finish?
Speaker: How many hours does it take to manufacture?
Speaker: A machine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you make one Princess Bride.
Speaker: How long does it take from... To go from the start of the assembly line to the end.
Speaker: Sometimes they say it takes 40 hours.
Speaker: Like when I've talked to other manufacturers, they said 40 hours, 28 hours or something like that.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: So Princess Bride Playfield takes about 16 hours.
Speaker: Lexi Lightspeed Playfield takes on average about nine hours.
Speaker: Heist Playfield takes 20 hours.
Speaker: Weird Al takes about 20.
Speaker: Those are all game kits, playfield modules, and they're varying degrees of complexity.
Speaker: Cannon Lagoon, which is just a few shot lanes in an LCD, takes under two hours.
Speaker: The base P3 system takes 60 hours.
Speaker: 60 to 65 hours to build the frame the cabinet the back box the wall and scoop assembly the trough assembly the flipper assembly there's a lot in a p3 and it's a lot of parts and it takes a long time to put it together but that's something you buy once and then you fill it up with game kits yeah definitely and now there's eight game kits right
Speaker: eight game kits and it's 15 now add on games.
Speaker: So there's a total of 23 games for the system.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I actually just downloaded rocks tonight.
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
Speaker: It's like your version of asteroids with pinball.
Speaker: And that's a unique experience as well.
Speaker: That's,
Speaker: so how much are the like each module like is there's expensive modules uh less expensive modules i mean uh what what do they what do they range what's the high and what's the low princess bride is our highest at 37.50 okay it gets you the full game kit you stick it in your machine you enjoy the whole experience it's what we're looking at in josh's background um
Speaker: Canon Lagoon is our least expensive.
Speaker: It, I believe is 1800.
Speaker: Lexi Lightspeed, Cosmic Kart Racing, those come in around.
Speaker: I've forgotten because we changed the price a year or so ago.
Speaker: I think they're 2600.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Are they 3000 now?
Speaker: I'm confused.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Around the $3,000 mark for a game kit.
Speaker: Final Resistance is $3,400.
Speaker: Heist is $3,250.
Speaker: Weird Al was $3,500.
Speaker: Okay, and I actually, I'm on your website, and I clicked on it.
Speaker: Okay, so you know better than me.
Speaker: Well, it said the P3 Game Matrix, and so that actually tells you which base game, and then if you want extra add-on games to download, it tells you which ones are compatible with which.
Speaker: Right, because certain mini games, we used to call them mini games, now we call them add-on games.
Speaker: Rocks, for instance.
Speaker: Rocks works on every single game kit that has a wire form and an eject that can get the ball over the walls and scoops because Rocks lifts all the walls and scoops up while you're playing it.
Speaker: So that works on seven of the eight play fields.
Speaker: A game like Dungeon Door Defender only plays on
Speaker: specific play fields that have features that integrate well with the rules of that game and that's the princess bride and heist bird watcher by ian harrower it runs on every single play field barnyard runs on every single play field shoot and scoot every single play field lexi lightspeed secret agent showdown is designed specifically for the lexi lightspeed play field so
Speaker: So historically, P3 has claimed TPF as their launch event of the year.
Speaker: It's where you showed Princess Bride.
Speaker: It's where you showed Word Al.
Speaker: That's where I played it was at TPF.
Speaker: Can we expect something coming up at TPF this year?
Speaker: We try to hit TPF every year with a new game because it's our home show.
Speaker: The logistics of getting...
Speaker: Machines and games there is easier.
Speaker: We can bring a team of people to support the games, unlike flying people out to a remote show is a lot more complicated.
Speaker: The history shows us bringing a game to TPF the last few years.
Speaker: We're trying.
Speaker: We're trying.
Speaker: No guarantees.
Speaker: We won't put out a game before it's ready, but we're trying to get it.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Now, if people are looking to buy the P3, what is the way they do this?
Speaker: And what's the current wait time?
Speaker: So jump on the website, multimorphic.com.
Speaker: There is a product listing for a P3 with the various trim levels of the Princess Bride.
Speaker: Or you can select the base model from a drop-down bar, I think, it's which game module you want installed in the machine.
Speaker: We ask for a deposit upfront, and then we ask for the remainder when the machine's on the production line.
Speaker: The time difference between that today is it's a week.
Speaker: You put in your order for a machine, a week later, we'll be telling you your machine's basically ready.
Speaker: Please pay the balance.
Speaker: We have every game except the Princess Bride right now, every game kit is in stock.
Speaker: So if you want a machine,
Speaker: We pull it out of our inventory, reconfigure it with Final Resistance or whatever you wanted, put it through Final Test, let you know it's ready to go.
Speaker: And that happens very quickly now.
Speaker: Of course, when we launch the next game, there's going to be a run on machines, there's going to be a run on game kits, and the queue may grow up again.
Speaker: It took us a year to get through The Princess Bride.
Speaker: It took us a year and a half to get through Weird Al.
Speaker: So who knows?
Speaker: It could grow to be a long lead time again, but right now it's super short.
Speaker: So if I already own the P3 and I'm looking to buy the next module, say, say what, so you actually do bring something to the CPF and I love what I see.
Speaker: How far out am I before I can receive the module in my home?
Speaker: It depends how quickly you clicked the button because if a thousand people click it right around the same time as you, then it could be a week.
Speaker: It could be a year.
Speaker: I don't,
Speaker: Don't know.
Speaker: So we process two build queues, one build queue of machines.
Speaker: So we'll launch a new game and some number of people will buy a new P3 to have it configured with that game, put it in their house.
Speaker: And then separately, we have people that already have a P3 and they're buying just the game kit.
Speaker: So for every two game kits we build, one goes to the machine queue and one goes to the game queue.
Speaker: queue for existing customers.
Speaker: Again, if you're the first person to click buy, then you're going to get it very quickly or as soon as we start production.
Speaker: Sometimes our production is delayed four or five months because usually we take, we use launches usually to gauge interest.
Speaker: We don't have tons of money, so we don't go out and spend a million dollars to seed our production line.
Speaker: We can't afford to do that.
Speaker: So we generally say, hey, here's a new game.
Speaker: Some number of people buy it.
Speaker: We're like, cool, we'll buy that many parts or twice as many as that parts or half as many and we'll do two runs or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker: So usually our production lags our announcement by a few months.
Speaker: But once we get going, first person to click buy gets it first and the last person to click buy.
Speaker: We had people complaining.
Speaker: They complained.
Speaker: It happened again with the Princess Bride.
Speaker: People are like, I clicked buy within 60 seconds of you announcing the game.
Speaker: Why is it taking nine months to get my game?
Speaker: I'm like, because... Someone clicked on 59?
Speaker: A lot more people clicked on it in less than that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker: You say go and people buy it and then it takes time to make the things.
Speaker: Do you have a program where legacy people who have bought... We have this in other aspects of pinball where I have friends who are on every limited edition list.
Speaker: They want to buy it.
Speaker: So do you have something like that where you have legacy people who have P3 systems and they say, hey, I just want it.
Speaker: Just put me on the list.
Speaker: Do you have anything set up like that?
Speaker: So we did that one time.
Speaker: We got people saying, I don't care what your next game is.
Speaker: I know I'm going to want it.
Speaker: I want to pre-order it now.
Speaker: And when we did that, it meant the first person who clicked buy when we announced the product.
Speaker: Eight months away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a bad experience for new buyers.
Speaker: So we didn't do that again.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm not opposed to doing it again.
Speaker: Maybe we separate into three build queues or something and say, this one's dedicated to the people that pre-bought.
Speaker: But I don't like
Speaker: A new person being excited about a game and clicking by now super early and then having to wait forever.
Speaker: And then they're at the end of the line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I get that.
Speaker: I'm all about fairness and giving people what they expect or hopefully what they expect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, one cool thing that you've actually worked out with us now, Jerry, is if someone listening to this podcast wants to get in on the P3 system right now, like you said, you have some in stock and you want to take advantage of some money off.
Speaker: You can get $1,000 off right now.
Speaker: The way it works is if you email loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com, we will get you in touch with Jerry and we will facilitate that $1,000 off.
Speaker: And like I said, on the first impressions video, if you've been dying to get into the system and you just, you want to get in, you do, this does apply to you have to get,
Speaker: a p3 console or a p3 system along with a game kit and the cheapest one out there right now is canon lingoon like i said it's not the most immersive game you can buy for the system it's the entry level yeah it's entry level it gets you in the door at 8 900 which is pretty amazing considering mid-tier games are about 10 grand for other for traditional companies
Speaker: So it really brings, cause that's been one of the complaints over the past few years.
Speaker: It's like, I want to get into the system, but the getting in's a little above where I feel like comfortable paying into now.
Speaker: Now we're helping you get that down to a place where it's like, Oh yeah, actually Jerry's helping you get that down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is all Jerry.
Speaker: We're just giving him a forum to talk.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: The team of people at Multimorphe, the large, very large and dedicated team of people are trying to do what we can to help people get into the system.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think you guys are doing an awesome job of it.
Speaker: You know, we went for about an hour 20 now.
Speaker: Is there anything we missed that you feel like you're just like, Jerry, you're like, guys, I want to talk about this.
Speaker: What topics do you think that we missed in our interview?
Speaker: Honestly, I appreciate the difficult questions, things related to the business, things related to challenges we've had.
Speaker: I enjoy talking about all aspects of the machine, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so.
Speaker: We didn't talk about specific features necessarily, and we have a ton of them.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: No, I was just saying, yes, we didn't talk about that.
Speaker: But I want to do a follow-up episode because what I want to do is talk about game development.
Speaker: So this was me dipping my toe in the water, and Josh too, since he actually has had the game.
Speaker: To say, hey, these are all these questions.
Speaker: I mean, I've had pinball for 10 years.
Speaker: And these are all these questions that I've had about, okay, what would push me to try something different, although similar?
Speaker: And that's what a P3 is.
Speaker: It's kind of like a pinball machine and a console game had a baby because there's aspects of both of those.
Speaker: and add the interactive thing with the screen.
Speaker: And so it's just, I'm trying to figure out the best way of incorporating that entire system.
Speaker: But now we wanna bring you back on because we wanna talk about how the game development happens.
Speaker: Like how do you select the themes that you're going to do?
Speaker: Who is going to be designing this?
Speaker: How do you get the rules?
Speaker: And so this is only the first episode of the P3.
Speaker: This is kind of like your P3 101.
Speaker: like your intro to the P3 system.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Obviously happy to do it.
Speaker: We can get you in touch with our developers.
Speaker: We can, we talk almost daily.
Speaker: Our whole development team kind of gets together and talks about the features or the issues or the new things we need to develop.
Speaker: We can get anyone on the call with you and talk through the process.
Speaker: Different people bring different perspectives and we all love talking about it because we all love the machine and we all love bringing cool things to
Speaker: to customers houses.
Speaker: It is, is definitely a unique experience that you can't get anywhere else inside of pinball.
Speaker: I will, I will give you that.
Speaker: And I don't think anyone can disagree with me.
Speaker: They could try, but they're, they're not going to be able to succeed.
Speaker: So if, if anyone wants to get ahold of you, Jerry, what's the best way to get ahold of you?
Speaker: So G Stellenberg at multimorford.com is the best.
Speaker: Um, I get emails night and day, and that may take me some time, uh,
Speaker: But if I don't respond in 24 hours, just ping me.
Speaker: You can imagine how many emails I get.
Speaker: But multimorphic.com, if you need support, you talk to support at Multimorphic.
Speaker: If you need sales help, if you're looking at pricing or want some help understanding what you need to purchase, sales at multimorphic.com.
Speaker: Just head to the website.
Speaker: All the addresses are there.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: And if you want to get a hold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can get a hold of us on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK, which is weird to be saying now, because I was always like, we're never doing Tik TOK.
Speaker: And now we're getting thousands and thousands and thousands of views on Tik TOK.
Speaker: So I guess we're on Tik TOK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But if you want to get ahold of us, that's the best way to do it.
Speaker: Silver ball swag.
Speaker: If you want some of like our hockey Jersey, I want to give a shout out to my local hockey team, the Vernal Oilers.
Speaker: They just create, they just did 44 and zero.
Speaker: It's the only season that's ever happened.
Speaker: I'm like, congrats to those guys.
Speaker: They're playing the championship games up here shortly.
Speaker: And yeah, buy a hockey Jersey for them.
Speaker: And then anything else I'm missing Scott?
Speaker: You know, it just, I definitely want you guys to check out the P3 system.
Speaker: Check out Josh's videos because that is going to answer a lot of your questions.
Speaker: And Josh and I have had a great time in the last couple of weeks talking about him experiencing the P3 because this is really our foray into it too.
Speaker: And we certainly appreciate Jerry to come on and Jerry reaching out to us to talk about the system because this is certainly a new aspect that I don't have much familiarity with.
Speaker: So I'm really grateful that we have this opportunity and hey, all pinball is good pinball, right?
Speaker: And this is even like a different aspect of pinball that I don't really know much about.
Speaker: So this is great.
Speaker: And if you want to hear not from me and company people talking about the machine, but want to hear feedback from owners, from people that have experienced the P3, jump on our Discord channel because the P3 Discord channel is where there's literally hundreds of people there hanging out daily talking about the P3 and answering questions and giving experiences.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: talking people through stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, if you want to be the fly on the wall, everyone's always like, I want to know what's going on inside the company.
Speaker: I mean, obviously they're not going to be giving away trade secrets in there, but
Speaker: A lot of the people that work at P3 are in that Discord, and you're going to feel like you're part of one of the company.
Speaker: I know also my phone was blowing up yesterday when I joined, and everyone's waving and singing.
Speaker: Hey, you got a P3?
Speaker: What's going on now?
Speaker: Well, thank you again, Jerry.
Speaker: And Scott, give us our last words.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I want you guys to go and check out The Princess Bride.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Maybe keep your antennas up, because I sense something's going to be coming soon.
Speaker: Thank you.
